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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to